Marriage Material. Ally Blake

sis!’ Sebastian stuck out his cheek for the same and received a fierce pinch instead.

      He bundled his niece across the yard, through the frosty Melbourne winter air, and into his ‘big car’. He snapped and tightened Delilah’s seat belt and could not help but smile when he saw her feet only just reached the edge of the front seat.

      She must have sensed his attention as she turned to him, her blonde curls bouncing about her ears, and cast him her sweetest smile.

      His heart clenched. Once he dropped her off, the car would be empty, just like his spacious home, where for years numerous spare bedrooms had awaited the cheeky spirit and raucous giggles of children.

      He gunned the engine, pumping the accelerator more than necessary but the noise helped obliterate the nagging sense of loneliness that had been creeping up on him all morning.

      He glanced at the clock in the dashboard. He was fifteen minutes late already. He drove out onto the tree-lined suburban street. What did fifteen minutes matter when no matter what he did that day, by the time he got back home, it would be to a big, empty house once more?

      CHAPTER ONE

      FURIOUSLY caressing her favourite calming crystal, a smooth, misshapen ball of blue lace agate, Romy was able to keep her mounting impatience in check.

      He’s late, Romy thought, sending a calm, no-worries smile to the three others who sat with her around the modern kidney-shaped conference table. Make that very late.

      They were all awaiting the arrival of Sebastian Fox, an ex-golf pro turned professional tomcat, a serial fiancé who nevertheless had walked the aisle to marriage but once, lasted six months at that, and, if all went according to Romy’s plan, the soon-to-be ex-husband of her client.

      Rather than do the impolite thing and release her frustration by screaming obscenities at the top of her lungs, Romy stood and walked to the doorway.

      ‘Since we might be here a while yet,’ Romy said, her voice the model of composure, ‘who wants a cuppa?’

      Gloria, Romy’s legal assistant, dressed in her customary head-to-toe basic black, requested plain coffee, black also.

      Janet, Romy’s client, was irritable and very good at it. Even the ambient sound of waves lapping at a far-away beach pulsing from hidden speakers could not surmount the incessant tattoo of her long, painted fingernails rapping on the smooth Formica tabletop. She ordered a tall espresso, extra-strong, and Romy wondered whether the tabletop would survive her attentions once that level of caffeine hit her system.

      Sebastian Fox’s lawyer, Alan Campbell, who sat alone on the concave side of the table, seemed hypnotised by the drumming of Janet’s fingernails. Apparently caffeine upset his stomach ulcer so he settled on a glass of water with which to take some Alka-Seltzer.

      All three seemed on the verge of spontaneous combustion, such were their palpable jitters. Romy wondered it she ought to have offered each a nice cold cup of Prozac instead, or decaf in the least.

      With her much-rubbed calming stone in hand, Romy wandered through the ultra-modern open-plan suite of legal offices of the boutique Archer Law Firm, in which she had worked the last five years, feeding off the optimistic energy the place exuded.

      She waved hello to several clients who were not there for legal advice but for the numerous in-house programmes to help them get back on their feet post-divorce, such as cooking classes, single-parent counselling and even a new divorcee-dating scheme Romy had been instrumental in setting up.

      With the usual spring in her step she made a beeline for the complimentary self-contained coffee hut by the lift.

      ‘Good morning, Hank.’ On tiptoe, Romy leaned over the counter to give the lovely elderly guy who ran the mobile café a kiss on the cheek.

      ‘Well, it is now, Ms Bridgeport. Gloria did not come around for your usual this morning. I was worried you had called in sick.’

      ‘Not at all. Healthy as could be. Vitamins every day are the trick.’

      She put in her order and was content to keep half an ear on Hank as he happily chatted away about his favourite Australian Rules football team’s mid-season winning streak.

      To combat her left foot’s growing desire to tap out her frustrations on the blond wood floor, Romy rolled her stone around in her palm, soaking up every bit of positive energy she could. The blue lace agate was supposed to bestow clarity and would concentrate her self-expression, which she would need when the opposing client showed up, if he ever showed up.

      The lift door pinged and Romy nonchalantly turned to see who had arrived. As though rubbing her crystal had raised a genie, Sebastian Fox had arrived dead on queue. And, like any respectable genie, he had brought forth a man who looked little like the grainy pictures Romy had in her legal dossier and more like he had stepped straight out of GQ magazine.

      Well, at least he’s finally here, she rationalised.

      Romy’s rational gaze raked over dark chestnut hair. Smooth, clear skin. A square face. Enviable sooty lashes that framed seductive grey-green eyes. His inviting mouth that appeared on the verge of a secret smile forced her spare hand to rest on her stomach to calm the wayward butterflies cavorting within. The reaction he invoked in her was instant, primal and unstoppable and all her conscientious crystal-rubbing went to waste in a heartbeat.

      She had known men like him before. Men with strong tall frames, with broad shoulders, slim hips and muscular thighs, encased in cashmere and cargoes that highlighted every centimetre of glorious man flesh. But she had been there, done that, and burnt the T-shirt.

      Romy continued to spin on her high heels as his eyes locked on to the quirky aqua desk at the end of the room where two cute guys and one cute girl sat below a big plastic downward-pointing arrow suspended from the ceiling above. As he passed Romy went to say something, to call out, to introduce herself, to yell at him for his serious lateness, but for a woman who made her living talking, she simply could not find the words.

      Sure, she had known men on the high end of the hunk scale, but she had not known a stranger to smell that good! She caught the drifting scent of soap and cinnamon and felt an insistent physical tug like a dog on a lead, and was in very real fear that she was watching after him with her tongue hanging out.

      Though it took her a few diverted moments to recall why she so detested him, she finally managed. The man who was leaning over the desk, causing both the girl and the guys at Reception to go goo-goo-eyed, was no less than a physical affront to her whole belief system.

      He was practically a professional groom-to-be, having been engaged to three women in seven years with very little time to himself in between. Janet had been the third, and she wondered momentarily what she had done differently that afforded her a wedding band to match the killer diamond on her left hand. But whatever it was in the end it still had not lasted.

      And Romy was an anomaly in the field of divorce law. She was an advocate for marriage. She went to the nth degree to free her clients from bad marriages for the express purpose of giving them the opportunity to find true marital happiness elsewhere.

      ‘Are you all right, Ms Bridgeport?’ Hank asked, luring her attention back to the coffee hut.

      ‘Sure, fine. And you?’ She deserved the bemused blink Hank shot back.

      ‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘Your order is ready. I’ve added a plateful of Melting Moments.’

      ‘Thanks, Hank.’

      ‘You knock ’em dead, Ms Bridgeport.’

      ‘With pleasure, Hank.’

      Romy gathered the tray and turned around but Sebastian was gone. Into the conference room already, she assumed.

      As she walked around the assortment of modern couches and avant-garde coffee-tables in the reception area, then through winding halls to the conference room, she hung on tight to her